


Adrien on a Stick

by quicksilversquared



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Dweebs being dweebs, Gen, based on my family's stories...again, fun at the fairground, title a nod to the MN State Fair's Everything on a Stick theme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 14:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18317102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilversquared/pseuds/quicksilversquared
Summary: When Adrien can't make it to yet another one of their outings, his friends have to get creative.And then they get silly.





	Adrien on a Stick

"Dude! Your father said no _again?_ What's his issue?"

Adrien winced and shrugged at the incredulous look on his friend's face. "I don't _know!_ I mean, he hasn't ever let me go out on every outing ever, but this...?"

"He's kept you from practically every single one of our get-togethers lately!" Nino exploded. "And he hasn't even given you a reason why! Like, hey, you're behind on piano practice or there's a make-up photo shoot for that one Hawkmoth interrupted, or, or- there's not even a _bullshit_ excuse!"

Adrien groaned, unable to keep his exasperation in for once. "I _know_! And I've tried pressing Nathalie for why he thinks that I shouldn't go out, but all she says is 'it's what your father wants'. Which is _annoying._ Like, why does he want it? It's not like he wants to spend the time with me or anything."

Nino just shook his head. They had just made plans to go to a fair that had come to Paris, and it looked like a _ton_ of fun. The four of them had been really excited about it and had made plans about what rides they would go on and where they would eat and the activities they would try. Alya had gotten her parents to agree to let her off the hook for babysitting for that evening, Nino had gotten permission to go, Marinette had let her parents know her plans-

-and Adrien had been told _no_. Again. For absolutely no reason at all.

"Like, is he afraid that you'll clog your arteries on deep-fried doughnuts or something?" Nino was on a roll. "Or that you'll make yourself sick on cotton candy? You'll get a clown face done at one of the stations and end up in the papers? Like, we could even have your bodyguard come along with us. He's cool."

"Father needs him that afternoon, apparently. Or at least that was what Nathalie told me when I suggested that." Adrien sighed, propping his chin up on his fist. "Though I'm not sure how my father could _possibly_ need the Gorilla when he never even leaves the house. You guys will have to go without me and tell me how it went. Maybe I can come next year or something."

He looked so _downtrodden_ , Nino just couldn't stand it. He would go confront Mr. Agreste, except... well, that hadn't turned out very well last time.

"I don't suppose you could sneak out?" Nino suggested weakly, but he knew already that Adrien wouldn't go for it. If Mr. Agreste knew that Adrien had wanted to make plans for a certain night, then he would have Nathalie keep a particularly close eye on Adrien to make sure that he obeyed his father's orders.

And if Adrien escaped to spend the evening like a _normal_ teen, then Mr. Agreste would punish him by denying absolutely every last get-together that the four of them could have, even if they were only hanging out at their houses. The man was just an asshole like that.

"Not a chance. And it wouldn't make sense for you to video chat with me all night. It would be a pain for you to carry a phone around like that for the entire time."

"For you, it's no trouble. And it keeps Marinette from being a third wheel with Alya and I, too," Nino added slyly. "You wouldn't want to make Marinette a third wheel, would you?"

"You _could_ invite along other people, you know." Adrien glanced towards the classroom door, where Rose and Juleka were just entering. "I'm really sorry, dude, but I honestly can't make it. I wish, but..."

Nino sighed. He didn't doubt that Marinette would end up winning Adrien over on the video chat idea- even if his best bro didn't realize it yet, he was _totally_ weak for Marinette's kitten eyes- but he wished that there was some way he could help.

They should have told Mr. Stick-in-the-mud Agreste that Adrien was coming over to Nino's house for a study session instead of telling him the truth and mentioning the fair, but it was too late for that.

"Have fun," Adrien told Nino. "I can't be part of it, but I'm sure you'll still have fun."

 

* * *

 

They ended up video calling Adrien anyway. As soon as they had cleared the line into the fair and had gotten their plan in order, his phone was ringing.

"You had to be part of it," Alya told Adrien, crowding in over Marinette's shoulder and waving the thing in her hand at her phone. "And not just as _this_ , either."

Adrien let out a sharp bark of laughter, leaning in closer to his screen to get a better look at the thing that Alya was waving around. "What _is_ that?"

Alya was grinning. "It's your head, isn't it obvious?"

 _Obvious_ might have been stretching it. What Alya was holding was nothing other than a life-sized cardboard cutout of Adrien's head and shoulders, mounted on a stick. It was quite a good picture, one that Alya had taken on one of the outings that Adrien _had_ been allowed to come out on. Adrien's grin was a little wilder than the one he always offered to photographers during his photoshoots, his hair a little ruffled. He looked like a normal teenager.

Adrien adored the photo. But right now, he was a little bit puzzled about why it was there.

"Well, we wanted to take some group pictures," Nino explained, draping himself over Marinette's other shoulder. "And we didn't want to leave you out. It would look pretty silly if we just held up Marinette's phone in all of the photos, since you would just be a little dot on the screen. So we thought we would bring _you_ via the phone, and bring your face with this thing."

Adrien laughed. "You guys are crazy."

"Yeah, but you love us anyway."

It didn't take them long to get into the fair mood. They bought treats ("We'll bring you anything that can last overnight," Nino promised. "Which...honestly might not be much.") and hopped on the Ferris Wheel. They took a selfie at the top, after lots of giggling over trying to figure out at what height they had to hold the Adrien-on-a-stick.

Or, well...they had _tried_ , at least.

"He's not taller than me, though!" Nino protested as Alya hoisted the head a little higher. "Adrien's, like, a couple centimeters shorter."

"I am _not_ ," Adrien insisted from Marinette's phone screen. "I'm totally taller!"

"Dude, you are not."

"I think Adrien is taller," Marinette chimed in. "Just by a little bit, though."

"No, dude, _I'm_ the one that's a hair taller!"

Alya sighed. "Okay. How about this? We make them the _same_ height for the picture. You're close enough that it would be hard to see sitting down anyway."

The dual, grudging "oh, I _suppose_ "s from the boys made both Alya and Marinette giggle.

With the height more or less decided (for the time being, at least), they had to figure out how to position the cut-out to make it look real. There was a decent amount of shuffling around to figure it out.

"We should have practiced this before," Alya sighed as the ride came to a halt. "Now we're going to have to go again. Well, we can figure out how to hold Adrien while people get off, at least."

The next round went smoother, and they got their group photo, as strange as it probably looked. The Adrien-cutout got tucked into Alya's bag when not in use, and they nearly forgot about it as they went on a couple more rides. Adrien had to look away when they went on a spinning ride, since it didn't exactly translate well over the phone. They watched a few families try to play the (rigged) carnival games and went through a hall of mirrors, then headed to listen to a few musicians play out in the street.

"Oh, there's a Tunnel of Love!" Alya pointed out, excited. "We can go on a boat ride and- oh, right," she interrupted herself, wincing. "Maybe some other time."

"I can wait out here," Marinette said quickly. "Adrien and I can go watch some of the street performers."

"Yeah, go have fun," Adrien spoke up right away. He grinned. "But be responsible!"

"Very funny." Still, Alya looked back at Marinette. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," Marinette assured her. "Besides, I wanted to look at the outfits of some of those performers. Most are just wearing whatever, but there's a pair of dancers that have some _crazy_ amazing beadwork and embroidery on their skirts."

On the other end of the line, Adrien perked up. "Ooh, is there a fashion tent? I'm really curious about what kinds of fashion are shown at the fair."

"Oh, god, let's leave the nerds to their fashion stuff," Alya told Nino, tugging at his hand. "Marinette, we'll catch up with you in the fashion tent. It might take a bit- the line at the tunnel is pretty long."

They split, and it was a full hour before Alya and Nino managed to catch up with Marinette, who had managed to wander into the heart of the Fashion tent. She and Adrien were exclaiming over some dresses made out of unusual materials, and it took a bit to pull them away from the display.

"We can do another selfie," Nino suggested before they left. "I'd like to have more than the one, anyway."

Alya was already pulling the head on the stick out of her bag. "Yeah! Okay, let's do it. C'mon, scrunch together- Marinette, hold on to Adrien's head-"

"That sounds _completely_ normal," Nino said with a laugh, passing the head over to Marinette. "Okay, I'll hold the camera-"

It took a few seconds for them to cram together enough that the Adrien-head looked natural, and then they all grinned as Nino snapped the photo. He checked the photo, and once they decided that it was good, they broke up again.

"Oh- none of this is getting posted to social media, right?" Adrien asked as they headed out of the tent, an anxious look suddenly on his face. "Because if it is and someone sees it and it gets spread, then my father might see it out of context and then think that I snuck out. Or if he has Nathalie monitoring your social accounts."

"I'll keep those photos off," Nino promised. "We can take a couple photos without you to post online. We'll just email the other ones to you so that you can have them."

"Thanks!"

As the afternoon went on and they had more sugar and went on more rides, the three of them got more and more giggly. Adrien was grinning as he watched their antics over the phone, occasionally acting as the sole voice of reason in the group. They took more selfies, both with and without Adrien in the photo.

And then they started getting silly.

"Can we get a close-up of Adrien enjoying some cotton candy?" Nino asked as they left the booth with cones of spun sugar. He pointed to Alya's bag when they gave him a confused look. "Just, like, the head emerging from the sugar. Like he's bathing in it or something."

"If we hold all three of our cones together, then maybe it'll hide the fact that he has no body," Marinette pointed out once she saw that Adrien was laughing as he protested. She giggled when he gave a theatrical gasp and pouted at her. "If I hold my cone and Alya's and Nino holds the head and _his_ cone, then Alya can frame the photo really well."

"And what am I, boiled cabbage?"

Nino snickered as Marinette carefully set her phone down on a nearby ledge so that Adrien could watch them. "We gotta do it, mate. You know we do."

The photo turned out perfectly, Adrien's face framed by clouds of sugar. Their giggles increased when they noticed that a wisp of sugar had come off of one of the cones and draped itself around one of the cardboard locks of hair.

"We would bring you some of this, but it kind of collapses and goes weird overnight," Nino told his friend as they headed down the road again. "And the packaged stuff isn't as good, it seems. It might just be bias, though."

"I'd be more interested in the doughnuts, I think," Adrien told him. "I don't get those very often, so if there are really good ones..."

"We'll try them out!"

Adrien's head fell victim to a tub of ice next, posed to look like Adrien was buried under a mound of ice under the watchful eye of a very puzzled drinks vendor. They got their water from him and waved good-bye, brushing droplets of water off of the Adrien head as they continued up the fairway.

"Think of all of the _possibilities!_ " Nino exclaimed, waving the head a little as they walked. "Like- the ball pit! A bowl of ice cream! A log!"

Alya gave him a _look_. "And where exactly are we meant to find a log?"

"It's a fair! Surely _someone_ has a stray log sitting around somewhere."

"It's too bad you don't have several pictures of me," Adrien said with a laugh, apparently deciding that his amused protests were getting him nowhere. "With, like, different expressions. It's going to be obvious after the first picture or two that I look _exactly_ the same in every photo."

"We'll just not show people more than a picture or two in a row, then," Alya said with a shrug. "Or we'll show different people different photos and then get to sit back and cackle when they mention it to each other and then get all confused because they saw different pictures."

"Besides, I doubt that people are _that_ observant," Nino pointed out. "They probably won't notice unless they see stuff side by side. I say we find as many _ridiculous_ places to stick the Adrien-head as we can for the rest of the afternoon, just because we can."

"You guys are _mad_."

 

* * *

 

By the time they were ready to leave, they had several dozen progressively goofier photos with the Adrien-head and a bag full of assorted fair treats and prizes to sneak to Adrien when they had the chance. They had been accompanied for the last hour by the sound of Adrien practicing piano, since Nathalie had asked him to and was periodically sticking her head in to make sure that Adrien was actually doing the work.

"Well, that was more fun than anticipated," Nino said cheerfully as they checked to make sure that they had everything before heading out of the park. "Normally I get bored at the fair. Like, there's some cool music performances, sure, but it's a lot of time on my feet and lines for the rides and a _lot_ of grease in the food, and that gets old fast. Or I'm watching my little brother, and _that's_ no fun."

"Kids at the fair are awful," Alya agreed. "My sisters are a _nightmare_ to watch, because they want to see _everything_ and then they hit a wall and whine until we can leave. _And_ they don't want to go on any of the cool rides."

"Neither did Marinette," Nino pointed out. "She just had to sit to the side and be serenaded by Adrien while we went on the big roller coaster."

Both Marinette and Adrien spluttered and protested. "It wasn't _serenading_ -"

"I was playing the theme from _Star Wars!_ " Adrien added. "And I mean, yeah, I might have been adding a bit of acapella in for spice or when I messed up a bit, but I don't think that counts as serenading."

Nino and Alya exchanged a smirk. Whatever Adrien had been playing right before they came back had _definitely_ not been _Star Wars_. And whatever he had been _singing_ -

Well, it had also not sounded like _Star Wars_ , unless the movies had suddenly gained lyrics to go along with their theme songs. And Nino was pretty sure that they had not.

But they weren't going to tease _too_ hard, not when Adrien could just end the call to escape the conversation. That would be a bit unfair to Marinette.

"I think we have everything," Alya declared after a quick glance around. " _Including_ the ladybug pillow that Marinette won for you, Adrien," she added when she spotted Adrien craning his neck. "I still can't believe that she won that game _twice_ in a row. Those kinds of games are meant to be rigged."

"Nothing is rigged if you throw hard enough," Marinette muttered, but a smirk was playing at the edges of her lips. Clearly she was proud of her achievement. "And if you have decent aim."

"You were supposed to knock the bottles over, Marinette, not _smash_ them," Nino chimed in, but he couldn't keep from laughing. "It was pretty impressive, really. And the _look_ on the shop owner's face-!"

"He shouldn't have glued his bottles down the first time, then."

Alya snorted with laughter, then pulled out her phone as it buzzed. "Oh, that's my dad. He says we should meet him at the far end of the parking lot, since he can't get any closer in. Let's pack up and go."

"What should I do with the head?" Nino asked as he held it up. "Do you just want me to carry it, or...?"

"I'll take it," Alya offered, reaching out for the head. "Maybe we'll have to use it again sometime. I _hope_ not," she added to Adrien. "I'd rather just have you join us, of course. But you can't deny that we can take some _really_ funny photos with it."

"I'd say this is revenge for all of the times I haven't been able to join you guys for stuff, but none of that was my fault," Adrien said, but he was laughing. "Are you going to mix up what photo you use on the paddle?"

"Nah, it wouldn't look _that_ different," Alya told him as they exited the fairgrounds and started winding through the parking lot. "It doesn't show your shirt, so it's not like your hair is _noticeably_ different between normal shots or anything."

"That's fair, I suppose."

"We could find some way to stick a shirt on it so that it wouldn't look so weird in group photos," Marinette suggested, and Alya snickered.

"Yes, Marinette, you can dress Adrien."

"I'm starting to think that I need to persuade my father to let me come out with you guys for the _sole_ purpose of keeping you from doing weird things with my head," Adrien commented as Marinette turned pink. "I'll ask Nathalie and see if she can figure out what his problem is."

"And if not, then maybe we can find something to do where you _can_ sneak out," Nino suggested. "If you don't tell your father then he won't think to check in on you, right?"

"Maybe," Adrien said doubtfully. He glanced off to the side as though he was listening to something, then turned back to them. "And I have to go right now, but I'll see you guys tomorrow, right?"

"Of course," Nino assured him as the girls let out a chorus of good-byes. "See you, bro."

Adrien waved, and then the line went dead. Marinette tucked her phone back into her pocket and pointed towards Alya's father's car, waiting at the end of the next row. She and Alya hurried towards it and Nino followed, at a slightly slower pace.

Because, well...Adrien's earlier words had given Nino an _idea_. A wonderful, awesome, _splendid_ idea.

And he couldn't _wait_ to try it out.

 

* * *

 

Nino groaned as he checked his watch again. Adrien had _promised_ him that he would come study with Nino after his fencing practice. The end of the fencing class had come and gone , and there was no Adrien.

 _Again_.

Nino knew that Adrien wasn't doing it on purpose. Sometimes he agreed to something early in the day and simply forgot later on because of all of the other things in his schedule that he had to remember. Sometimes Adrien planned on coming and then his father sprung a obligation on him and Adrien just got thrown off enough by that that he forgot to mention it to his friends. Sometimes it was just forgetfulness.

But it was getting really, _really_ exasperating, especially when Nino was counting on his friend to help him learn something for a test.

But Nino had an idea to help Adrien remember. A prank, of sorts. One that would stick in Adrien's mind and _hopefully_ make him actually remember to either tell his handlers about his study sessions with his friends or remember to tell his friends- well, Nino mostly, Alya usually couldn't stay to study since she had to be home with her sisters and Marinette was plenty smart on her own and she seemed equally as busy as Adrien- that he wouldn't be able to make it.

Checking his phone one more time, Nino temporarily left his stuff piled on the table and trotted down to his locker. There, he pulled out the cardboard cutout of Adrien that he had stuffed in. It had barely fit- thankfully they were still young enough that Adrien's shoulders hadn't broadened yet- but it was there, and so Nino hauled it back up to the library.

Thankfully there weren't a lot of people around still, because there would _definitely_ be some questions about why he was carrying around a cardboard cutout of his best friend around.

It wasn't a _complete_ cutout, of course. It was a bit above the waist-up, but that was all Nino needed for his prank.

Grinning, Nino grabbed a few thick books off of the shelves and piled them up on a chair, adjusting them until "Adrien" was sitting at a realistic height at the table. Nino lent him a couple notebooks and a pencil and arranged it realistically, as though Adrien had just sat back for a moment from doing his schoolwork.

Well, it wasn't going to fool anyone in person, but maybe once the sun shifted a little it would be perfectly convincing in a photo.

Nino went back to his notebook, only stopping to respond to a text from Alya. Apparently an akuma fight had tumbled past her apartment and she was a bit sore that she was stuck babysitting and couldn't go chasing after the fight until her dad got home.

He would have offered to come over and watch the twins for a bit until the akuma fight was over so that Alya could go out, but the bruises that he had gotten from his last impromptu babysitting gig had yet to fade away and he was in no hurry to get more. Besides, he _really_ had to get this Physics homework done, and it was going to take a while without Adrien's help.

"Hey, Adrien, what formula should I be using for this problem?" Nino asked. He pretended to listen intensely to the cutout for a few seconds, and then nodded seriously. "Ah, yes, of course."

Slowly but surely, Nino worked his way through his homework. The sun finally set enough for him to _finally_ put his plan into action. Shifting around in his seat, Nino dug out his phone and turned it to selfie mode, adjusting until his Adrien-cutout looked pretty realistic. It helped that his phone camera wasn't as good as Alya's, and the angle of the sun wasn't reflecting off of the paper. He snapped a few photos, and then movement in the window caught his eye.

...apparently the akuma fight had moved over to the school.

"Oh, Alya is gonna _flip_ ," Nino muttered excitedly, wriggling a little to get a better angle. He snapped a whole slew of photos as Ladybug and Chat Noir tumbled past, then flipped through the shots that he had gotten. Several were blurry, but he had a really good one of him and "Adrien" sitting there with Chat Noir poised for battle in the background, Ladybug a red blur a little farther out. As the sounds of the battle got a little too loud to ignore- they had definitely shattered at least one window somewhere nearby- Nino decided to take a short break from the studying and post the photo online.

_Studying with my best bro! Not even an akuma attack can distract us from our studies!_

With the photo posted, Nino waited until the sounds of the battle cut off- Ladybug and Chat Noir saved the day once again- and then turned back to his work. He was nearly done with his physics homework, so maybe he could get started on his research for his project in Civics before he had to go home.

There was still no Adrien by the time Nino had finished with Physics, which suggested that his friend probably wasn't paying attention to his phone at all, since he would have gotten notified when the picture went up. Either he was busy with a photoshoot or something or he was neck-deep in his own homework at home, and he would be _super_ apologetic when he spotted the texts and picture.

Which...well, Nino felt bad about, just a bit, but _really_ , Adrien had to get better at not flaking out on him.

Thirty minutes later, Nino made a face as a group of younger students piled into the library, pushing each other and giggling as they settled down at a table close to Nino. Something about that screamed _trouble_ (and also _too noisy to study_ ), so Nino started packing up, shoving his notebooks in his bag and putting the books away on the shelves. When he came back from checking out the books that he actually needed out, he noticed that one of them had somehow gotten their baseball hat snagged on one of the sprinklers in the ceiling.

 _That_ was unfortunate.

Nino had started gathering up his things when the first bouncy ball landed on the opposite side of the table. He paused, puzzled as the second ball landed. It didn't take long for him to realize that the kids were trying to knock the hat down. Before he could tell them off or alert the librarian, the next ball hit the sprinkler dead-on, knocking the hat off and setting the sprinkler off.

Yelping, Nino grabbed his bag and dove under the table so that his stuff wouldn't get soaked. He could hear yelling from the kids, and then the sharp voice of the librarian trying to get everything under control. The water was soaking the carpet, and Nino winced.

At least his notebooks hadn't been left out. His cutout was probably a lost cause, though.

Mr. Haprele's voice appeared and then left, and then it was only seconds more before the water flow slowed to a halt. Nino gingerly crawled out, wincing as water from the pool on the tabletop dripped down onto him.

"That kind of behavior is _not_ tolerated in my library!" the librarian, Madam Richmond, was scolding the group of kids. It looked like one or two had managed to escape in the chaos, but Nino suspected that they would be caught and hauled back before long. "All of you, to the principal's office, _now!_ "

As Madam Richmond and Mr. Haprele ushered the soggy, sullen group of kids towards the door, a familiar figure ducked into the library. He moved out of the way of the group, and then glanced around the library. Adrien's startled eyes fell on Nino in the middle of the mess and he made a beeline for him.

"What even _happened_ in here?" Adrien asked, glancing around. His eyes fell on the floppy cardboard cutout doing a faceplant on the table and he snorted. "Do I even want to know?"

"Some idiot kids managed to set off the sprinkler. I'm lucky that I had started packing up when they came in and were making a ton of noise, because none of my stuff got wet." Nino patted his bag. A couple drops had gotten onto it when he came out from under the table, but for the most part it was dry. "And I had gotten the books I was using either checked out or put away."

"It could have been a lot worse," Adrien agreed, glancing around. "But it's going to be a job and a half to save the books that _did_ get wet. I wonder if we shouldn't pull them off of the shelves, since the water is pooling there."

"Yeah! And maybe we could call Marinette and ask if she could bring some towels or something over, so they could absorb some of the water from the books." Nino hauled his stuff over to a dry table- thankfully the sprinkler had only hit part of the room- and then pulled out his phone to call her. "I just feel really bad for Madam Richmond. It's going to be a mess if she has to get books replaced."

Adrien nodded as he started pulling the least damaged books off of the shelf before more water could get on them. "Yeah. That would cost a lot, probably, and it's a complete waste of money just because some kids decided to mess around."

It didn't take long to call up Marinette, and she promised to bring over all she could carry. Nino thanked her, then hung up and threw out the completely ruined cutout before heading over to help Adrien.

"By the way- I'm _so_ sorry for forgetting about studying," Adrien told Nino as they cleared off the shelves. "I just got wiped out at fencing and then forgot to tell the Gorilla that I didn't need to get picked up."

"Right," Nino said with a nod, though he didn't feel particularly convinced. It felt like the same excuse time after time and nothing ever changed. "And you'll remember next time?"

Adrien nodded , though he looked worried.

Mr. Haprele returned with a whole cart of supplies for sucking up the water and drying the library up. He looked pleased when he saw what Nino and Adrien had accomplished.

"Damp books can be stood up over there," he told them, pointing at a series of dry tables on the far side of the library. "Fan the pages out so that they can air-dry. If they're a bit wetter, we'll put paper towels between the pages. Soaked books can be stacked over on that table, and Madam Richmond can tell us what to do with them when she gets back."

Nino dove in to help, gathering up an armful of damp books and getting to work. By the time he got three set up, Marinette was coming in with an armful of towels. Her dad was behind her, carrying a laundry basket full of all sorts of towels. They immediately got to work wrapping the soaked books in towels. Adrien flashed a huge grin at Marinette and she immediately flushed pink.

...sometimes Nino wondered if Adrien would have an easier time remembering their study sessions if Marinette came along, too. He seemed to love spending time with Marinette, even if he _claimed_ that he just saw her as a friend.

Madam Richmond nearly cried when she returned to the library ten minutes later and saw how much progress they had made.

"Some of these books might get lost, but this will help _so_ much," she told them as Adrien wiped down the emptied shelves with a towel. "I can focus on the really damaged books and try to save them. You all are _amazing._ Thank you, so, so much."

"You're welcome, Madam Richmond," they chorused.

Before long, Adrien got called home. He waved to Nino and Marinette before heading out, not looking entirely happy about leaving. Nino waved back before turning back to his work, sandwiching a few more paper towels between book pages and trying not to let the damp pages stick and tear. Marinette was having more success, he noticed, but she was also a _lot_ more used to working with her hands and doing delicate stuff.

Five minutes later, Nino realized that he had never really explained anything to Adrien about _why_ he had taken the selfie with the cutout. He hadn't really even gotten to properly see Adrien's response to the post, since they had been distracted by the rush to save the library books.

Oh, well. It didn't _really_ matter in the end. Either it would help Adrien remember in the future or it wouldn't, and there was nothing that Nino could do to change that.

 

* * *

 

Several blocks over, Gabriel Agreste returned to his office after yet another failed attempt to get the Miraculous from Ladybug and Chat Noir. He wasn't in a great mood to start with, and then Nathalie met him with her tablet in her hands.

"I thought you might be interested," Nathalie said, handing her tablet over. Gabriel took it, turning it to see the page on the screen. It only took Gabriel a second to recognize the page as belonging to Adrien's DJ friend. At the very top of the page was a new post, a photo with a short caption. Gabriel opened it, noting that it had been posted right in the middle of the akuma attack. Adrien and the DJ were seated in a library, busy studying. The caption read _Studying with my best bro! Not even an akuma attack can distract us from our studies!_ and sure enough, Chat Noir was clearly visible in the window in the background, with the blurred shape of Ladybug a bit farther back.

It wasn't a fantastic picture by any means, but it was clear enough that it told Gabriel all that he needed to know. If there was any doubt that Adrien _wasn't_ Chat Noir left after the Gorizilla attack, it was gone now.

"Well, I'm glad that he's taking his schooling seriously," Gabriel said stiffly, handing the tablet back. "Even if it _is_ with that insolent DJ friend of his. It's _unfortunate_ that he didn't post a picture like that back before I sent out Gorizilla, but the past is the past."

A muscle on the side of Nathalie's jaw jumped, but she didn't comment.

"Do contact Adrien and see when he plans to be home, though," Gabriel continued, turning back to his work. He had to get a couple sketches completed for a commission, and with all of the emotions running high around Paris he just hadn't had the time. "It's been several hours since fencing let out. Surely they've finished all of their homework by now."

"Of course, sir."

"And since he's been cleared of being Chat Noir, we can loosen the reins on him a little bit and let him go out with his friends more. Not _too_ suddenly or he'll suspect something, but gradually."

Nathalie nodded. "Yes, sir. Anything else?"

Gabriel nodded stiffly, his gaze returning to Emilie's portrait. "Yes, in fact. I'd like you to compile a list of all teenaged blond boys in this area of Paris. _Clearly_ I need to start my search over from scratch."

**Author's Note:**

> This particular story was inspired by a family trip of mine from a few years back. My parents were having their anniversary and wanted to go to the Tetons as a family trip. My brother didn't want to go. We wanted to take a family photo for the Christmas letter. So naturally, my dad printed out a life-sized picture of my brother's head and mounted it on sturdy cardboard on a stick for the photo. And naturally, we couldn't just use it for that, so we stuck it in all sorts of funny places on our hikes. My brother was less than pleased. The rest of us were really amused.
> 
> As with most of my stories, this is a one-shot and is therefore complete. And as always, reviews make my day!


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